Enable releases and versions

Releases represent points in time for your project. They can be used to schedule how features are rolled out to your customers, or as a way to organize work that has been completed for the project.

Enable the releases feature

1. From your project’s sidebar, go to Project settings > Features.

2. Toggle Releases on. 

When you enable the releases feature:

• A new Fix versions field will be added to your issue types.

• A new Releases menu item will be added to the sidebar.

Create a new version

From the Releases page

1. From your project’s sidebar, select Releases.

2. Select Create version.

When you create a version, you can enter the:

• Name: choose a name that’s easily identifiable for your teammates so they can recognise the version.

• Start date: the date work on the version will start.

• Release date: the planned release date for the version.

• Description: more information about what you plan to release in the version.

• Driver: someone in your team with project administrator permissions who’s responsible for coordinating the release from start to finish (by default, it’s the person who creates the version).

Assign versions to your issues

From the release page

1. Select Releases in your project sidebar, then select your version from the list.

2. At the bottom of the screen, select Add issues.

3. Search for an issue key or summary.

4. Choose the issues to add to the version, then select Add.

From the issue view

1. Open an issue.

2. Under the Fix versions field, select a version to add the issue to. You can select more than one version.

From the Versions panel

1. On the Backlog, select the Version filter and enable the Versions panel toggle.

2. Navigate to the Backlog

3. Open the Versions panel.

4. Drag an issue to the version you want to add it to.

Add other work related to your version

Add related work to your version so team members and stakeholders can easily find it. This can include things like release notes, analytics dashboards, designs, support documentation, and more.

To add related work to your version:

1. From your project’s sidebar, select Releases and go to your version.

2. Select Add… in the Related work section.

3. Enter the URL for the related work, a description, or both.

4. Choose a category and select Save.

Once you’ve added related work, select the menu icon () on the right-hand side of an item and go to Edit to update it, or Remove to delete it.

If your related work items are not ready yet, you can create a placeholder and add the URL later when the work is available.

If you need someone to work on an item for your release, link an issue to the related work and assign it to them. To link a new issue, hover over the related work item and select Create issue, or select Link issue to link an existing issue.

Filter versions on the Board and Backlog

1. Navigate to your project's Board or Backlog.

2. In the Versions filter or panel, select one or more versions. Issues belonging to these versions will continue showing, while all other issues will be hidden.

Use JQL to do advanced searching using versions

You can use JQL to perform more powerful searches using versions.

1. Select Jira home in the top-left corner.

2. Select Filters > Search issues.

3. Select Switch to JQL.

4. In your JQL query, you can use the FixVersion operator to search for issues in a specific version. e.g. FixVersion = 1.1

Monitor the progress of your versions

The releases feature shows how much work has been completed in each version. It shows a summary and breakdown of the issues in the version.

If you have connected Jira Software to your development tools, the release page will show development information about pull requests, commits, builds, and deployments associated with your issues.

Depending on which development tools are connected, warnings can also appear when your issue data is potentially out of sync with your development data. These include warnings about issues that are marked as done but have open pull requests or unreviewed code.